Everything old is new again at the Nassau County jail

                                                                           

Michael Sposato


Nassau Sheriff James Dzurenda, hired by former Democratic County Executive Laura Curran, is out.

Michael Sposato, former Nassau Sheriff under Republican County Executive Ed Mangano, is back, this time with the title of Commissioner of Corrections.

It all happened today under Republican County Executive Bruce Blakeman.

Nobody is saying it, but the changes in jail administration must have something to do with the Corrections Officers union a week ago voting down a new contract proposed by Blakeman and Brian Sullivan, president of the Corrections Officers Benevolent Association.

Union members didn't like Sposato, a former jail cook who was named acting sheriff in 2008 by then-Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi, a Democrat, and kept on by Mangano. His claim to fame was cutting overtime costs at the jail.

Sullivan had praised Dzurenda at legislative meetings.

Dzurenda had lots of real life credentials, working and overseeing correctional facilities in Nevada, Connecticut and New York City, before Curran named him sheriff in early 2020.

Dzurenda replaced Curran's first named sheriff, Vera Fludd who replaced Sposato.

After Blakeman took office in January, he brought Sposato back as a deputy undersheriff for $145,000 a year. But Sposato worked on the fifth floor of One West Street, where the old legislative chambers used to be, not in the jail.

Allegedly corrections officers didn't want him back in the East Meadow jail. 

But county fiscal watchdogs warned this summer that overtime in the corrections center was likely going to run over budget this year.

Sposato is said to have told fellow workers that he could keep corrections overtime under control if he was back in charge.

 Well, he's not quite back in the same position he left.

The story goes that Anthony LaRocca, a retired captain from the Sheriff's Office that Blakeman appointed as an undersheriff for $165,000 a year, has been made acting sheriff.

A Blakeman spokesman says Dzurenda resigned. Democrats say he was forced out. 

Nassau Democratic legislators in 2017 called for Sposato to resign, citing a rash of inmate deaths and problems with a  contract for corrections officers' health care.

But Mangano defended Sposato as a "proven cost-cutter."

Funny fact: The county legislature tomorrow is to consider a new bread contract for inmates at the county jail.

Corrections Center food and bread contracts have been controversial for more than two decades.

Former Democratic County Legislator Lisanne Altmann of Great Neck questioned in 1999 whether the food, bread and crackers purchased through county contracts approved by the legislature were being diverted to private political parties. Nothing was ever proved.

Then Mangano was indicted on charges in 2012 that he tried to steer a contract for bread and rolls at the jail to the wife of restaurateur's Harendra Singh, a family friend. Mangano was cleared of those charges but was convicted in federal court of accepting bribes from Singh in return for Mangano pressuring Oyster Bay Town officials to guarantee personal loans to Singh, a town concessionaire,

Mangano is appealing.





 


 

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